What Changes Everything

by Masha Hamilton

  He cried, too, for Afghanistan. No one would ever believe that, if he could tell them. He loved this country"s people, whose faces were etched by want and loss and fear and who still opened their lips to laughter. But he wondered how they could have ceded so much power to young, ignorant men and their leaders, often from outside the country, most of them not simply uneducated but actively disavowing education as if they sensed—and they had to, didn"t they?— that knowing more would inevitably disrupt their perfectly constructed, largely false world views. It sounded esoteric next to his tears for his family, his freedom, his life, but still he felt it: the loss of this country.

  He was fully awake now, and very aware of the pain in his side. After several minutes" focus, he managed to transport himself to Brooklyn, where he saw himself walking down the street with Clarissa, headed for the subway. They stopped at the place on the corner for coffee, and they split an Everything Bagel. He tried to bring specificity to the way the bagel tasted, the heat of the coffee on his tongue. In his mind, he took Clari"s hand and said, "Let"s skip work. Let"s be teenagers today." In his mind, she laughed and they turned back to home. Feeling all this almost as if it were truly happening, Todd, lying somewhere in Afghanistan not far from the Pakistan border, smiled.

  There was still so much ahead. In some ways, it had all just begun. A new beginning, at his age: how had he failed to appreciate that? This constantly running after something new, it had become a trap. If he somehow could get home, he vowed, he would stay there. He would stop running. He would embellish the contours of his own life, instead of trying to color outside the lines. If he had the chance, he would remember something he"d forgotten after the death of his first wife. He would remember how to love what he had.

  Stela, September 10th

  Dorogoi Mr. Chomsky,

  Greetings, or privyet, as I would like to be able to salute you; I know you must know your Russian given your parents" background. My name is Stela Sidorova, I am 56 years old and immigrated from the Soviet Union with my then-husband when I was only 20 years old. We moved to Ohio, where I now own and run a used bookstore. Alone, I might add. My husband, the chyort, deserted me nine years after our arrival here. I should have pounded his balls, but he was not a real man as you are, a man who stayed with his wife and supported his offspring. Oh well, forgive my frankness as I have forgiven him. At least he contributed to the creation of two little boys who then became mine alone. And because of him, I learned I must pray to God, but keep rowing to shore—an important lesson.

  I have many copies of books by you in my shop, more than I will ever be able to sell. But that does not mean you are unpopular with the Russian community here—just the opposite. Most part with your books only when they are dead. Perhaps if you are ever traveling in this area, you will stop in and sign some. It would be a great pleasure to meet you.

  But I"d better get to my point, in case you think it is simply for this that I trouble you. I write for two other reasons. One is personal: I am preparing to compose a very important letter to my only surviving son, and so every correspondence is practice for that one. I hope you won"t be insulted by my confession. It is only in letters that I feel I can be fully honest, even with myself; perhaps, as a writer, you understand that.

  The other reason is about the war. I know you are a member of the intelligentsia and a dissident, two groups which are much smaller in this country than in ours: the country of my birth, the one you must also partly claim. And I know that you are an expert on how governments behave. What do you think: is it possible that an American military officer would lie to a mother about the death of her son in war? Would the army tell a mother her son was a hero when he wasn"t? Would they bury him at Arlington if he didn"t deserve to be there?

  I hope this question doesn"t strike you as naïve. I know of course that governments lie; I was born a Soviet, after all. But the soldier who told me what happened to my son seemed so reliable to me, and I"m a good judge of character. I found myself wanting to comfort him, he seemed so sad.

  I am not like you, a famous writer and thinker, but I am well-read and not an idiot—I have spent years surrounded by these books, so how else could I be? I know you have an excellent brain. I know you are a critic of my adopted government. I know you will tell me there is a possibility I was deceived. But what I am wondering is if you will tell me that it is really likely they would lie to someone as unimportant as me about something so important.

  Finally, I must to tell you one thing, dear Mr. Chomsky—or Noam, as I hope I can call you, given our shared heritage and having revealed so much of myself. I say this as a sister from your parents" homeland. If you look like the most recent pictures I have seen of you, you need to trim your hair. It"s not that I object to wild hair—my boy Piotr had such hair. But if you are going to criticize the men who sit in boardrooms and government offices, you yourself must look like you"ve just walked out of one. Put this way, I imagine you see what I mean. So will the

  barber.

  I await your reply. Thank you for your time, and remember the invitation to my store. It is called Bulgakov"s Bookshelf. I would be happy to see you any time, haircut or no.

  Iskrenne vash,

  - Stela Sidorova

  Amin, September 11th

  Amin woke into silence. He opened his eyes and let them close again. A moment later came the first syllables of the call to prayer. A sign of the effectiveness of his body clock, which had been set in youth and now virtually never failed to try to raise him at this hour, even when he"d fallen ill or found himself in places where prayer calls would never be heard—although how people could live forever without the dawn call to prayer, without that mystery and meaning, bewildered him.

  "Allah is great." The muezzin broke through the darkness, expanding each word into music, carrying the melody of a desert wind on a summer night. Amin rested a hand on his wife"s belly, feeling the movement of her breath meld with the praise of Allah. Lingering, he let the sound of the adhan soak into his body. He was reluctant often, but today in particular, to fully shed sleep. "Hurry to prayer. Hurry to prayer," came the last admonitions. "Prayer is better than rest." The fajr worship time was Allah"s favorite, it was said, since one must rise from slumber for it. He rolled from his bed, gave his eyes a moment to adjust, moved to the sink to wash, and then outside to pray.

  When he returned inside after finishing, the scent of chai greeted him. His wife handed him a cup without speaking; he kissed her forehead. He drank, feeling the tea warm his throat, as she stood silently watching him. It was rare to see her both awake and unmoving. "Mahmoud

  and the girls are still sleeping?" he asked.

  She nodded.

  The stiff posture of her back, the rootedness of her feet, made a statement that demanded a response. "I have to," he said.

  She shook her head. "No, you don"t."

  "I have to do everything I can."

  "Everything you can from the safety of our home, fine. Traveling into Ghazni, speaking out there on behalf of an American: this is madness. Were you so long away from this country that you forgot?"

  "I have to do what I can. He"s my boss, and he"s human, and he"s done nothing wrong. It"s not nationality that matters."

  "In your mind, yes. But not in theirs."

  "What about yours?" he asked. "Would you feel better if it weren"t an American I was trying to help?"

  She didn"t answer.

  "It"s not as simple as us against them," he said. "It"s never been that simple. It"s all of us—Mr. Todd, and you, and me, and the others—and among us are some of them. You know that."

  She turned and knelt before a wide-mouthed bowl she"d already filled with bread dough. She dove her right hand into the bowl and began kneading. The sight soothed him.

  "Us. Them," she said after a minute. "A fine and esoteric argument. It will not help when they ask if you love infidels."

  "I can manage their questions." He spoke with greater confidence than he felt. She wasn"
t

  fooled.

  "Like my uncle did?" His wife"s uncle, a policeman in Wardak, had been shot to death by Talibs five months ago simply because he worked for the government.

  "I am not going to be killed, Samira. This is a jirga."

  "And you think they will support this American over their own?"

  "It"s a matter of honor. They are real Pashtuns. They will decide as they should."

  She laughed, a little harshly. "Real Pashtuns. That"s what you count on?" She rose, dusted her hand on her skirt, stepped back and examined him. "Do you know a single one of them personally?"

  "My uncle is part of the jirga; I told you that."

  "He is your mother"s cousin. What do you know about him?"

  "Samira, enough," Amin said gently. "If I am to be the father my children would look up to, I have to do this."

  She lowered her voice and moved closer to him. "Oh no, don"t bring your children into this. Your impulse is as pure as a mud puddle, and you are only paying half-attention to your own mind and heart, Amin, if you don"t see that." He didn"t answer, so she went on. "You"re trying to change something that can"t be changed anymore. Something I think could never have been changed by you alone, but in any case, that caravan has moved on, years ago. Why are the dogs still barking?"

  He sighed and sunk to his heels, squatting, so that he looked up at her as he spoke. He knew this would help soften her. "I could have done more, back then," he said. "And yes, it troubles me still. But this is not related to that."

  "Really? I think—do you want to know?"

  He smiled. "If I didn"t? Whatever is in your heart always rises to your tongue, Samira jan."

  "You are being selfish in putting yourself in danger because of decades-old guilt. You"re not thinking of your children at all."

  He almost laughed at the courage it clearly took her to say this. Theirs had been an arranged marriage; she was the daughter of his father"s cousin, seven years younger than he. He"d found her beautiful, but so shy. They"d lived together in the States for two years while he studied, and then returned. Once back, she"d faced the criticism of her family, who thought Amin was misguided—or even immoral—to work with foreigners. Under these pressures, he"d observed her strength and confidence grow, and he loved her more profoundly than when they were first married.

  He rose. "Is this what you want to say to me in the moments before I leave?" he asked mildly.

  "Our final conversation, you mean?" She glared at him.

  "Samira, Allah is with me," Amin said. "But that was easier to achieve than gaining your support."

  A weak smile appeared unbidden on her face, then vanished. "I see what you refuse to," she said.

  "I see it," he said. "But I have to try. Inshallah, Mr. Todd will be freed, and I"ll come back. Inshallah, in three days this will be done. Now, give me something of your love to carry with me."

  She stood silently for a moment, then went to the corner of the room, rummaged in a trunk and returned with a piece of cloth he knew she"d cut from her wedding veil. He handed her his cup and put the cloth in a pocket inside his vest. He put his hand on her cheek, but she pulled away. "I am not ready to be a widow," she said. "My children are not ready to be fatherless."

  "A few days, Samira." He smiled at her, gave her a wink. "And then I will be hungry, my wife. So be ready for my return."

  Clarissa, September 12th

  By the time Clarissa reaches the phone, it"s gone dead. It rings again, almost

  immediately, and she lifts the receiver. Todd"s voice, asking for something both urgent and vague. She calls his name and rushes to reply—wait, Todd, wait for me—but then out of her mouth, instead of words, a river of color spills: yellow becoming orange becoming red, flowing away from her in an arc.

  Clarissa awoke fevered, and fully, as if she'd just run a block, panting, with no tendrils left behind in the thick mud of lassitude. The call, Todd"s voice, the colors: it felt like a memory, but must have been a dream.

  She turned on her side. Thursday morning, 2:53 a.m., if one believed the clock by her bed. More like noon, going by her own body. Which made some kind of sense: it was nearly 11:30 a.m. in Kabul, and she was living in two diametrically opposed time zones now. She flipped on the lights and glanced around the bedroom. Her possessions had begun to look strange to her, unfamiliar and unwelcome: an oblong tube of hand-cream erect on the nightstand as if prepared to blast off and take flight, unread magazines lying fallen and limp, a closet with skirts clinging one to the next like timid sisters. None of it meant anything to her. Grief combined with fear had the force of a blizzard in the city, changing the shapes of buildings, turning the solid

  suddenly illusionary, obscuring all dependable landmarks.

  The only item she felt she needed—and even its practical use remained unclear—was a map of Afghanistan the FBI had given her; she"d posted it on the wall. Sometimes she stood close to it, becoming intimate with the country"s geography: the terrain of regions, the location of provinces, the jumble of letters that made up the names of tiny villages. Sometimes she stood at a distance to study it, and the shape of Afghanistan became the profile of a woman gazing thoughtfully down at Pakistan, with Iran at her back and Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on her head. What were these places? Except for Todd"s presence, they meant nothing to her. She knew little of the terrain or the weather, and the towns were filled with strangers. Jack said they thought Todd was being held in Ghazni Province, right about where the woman"s eye would be. A US military presence remained in the province, but it was Talibanheld, Clarissa knew. Talibs had carried out assassinations of local officials, as well as previous kidnappings, including the well-known abduction a few years back of 23 South Korean missionaries. After 42 days, all but two were safely released. The other two: killed. Grim details; still, in certain moods, she found them comforting. As though mathematical odds could be extrapolated.

  At this moment, however, nothing comforted. She went downstairs to the tiny room that was Todd"s study, opened the door and flipped on the lights. On the long desk sat a pile of yellow legal pads. She picked one up to read Todd"s scrawl. "Center expansion. Laura? Technical training—social media." In a corner on the floor, she saw three news magazines and a book spread at its spine, as if Todd had just put it down. Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. Pinned to the wall above the light switch, a snapshot showed Todd, grinning, standing in the middle of a group of people. He"d told her the names of some, but Clarissa had met none of them. She felt sharply isolated. Who were they? How well did they know Todd? What would they tell Clarissa to do? What should she be doing?

  Looking at the photo, she began to feel the walls squeeze in, an image from horror movies, she told herself. She sought a logical mind, but could find no other way to classify the sensation. In the first days after the kidnapping, shock had made it seem as if her eyes were being tugged toward her temples. Then fear left her stomach as raw as the inside of a carved pumpkin. But this new off-kilter reality—this sense that what had previously comforted her now threatened her—was something else, something she couldn"t yet name. She found it hard to breathe and even more, she was struck by the illogical certainty that if she didn"t eject herself from her home, she might be crushed.

  She"d never been given to insomnia before. She loved this two-story apartment that she and Todd had bought three years ago. On the rare occasions when she did awaken in the night, she"d found comfort in knowing she was safely cocooned in a place that felt, for the first time she could remember, like home. With all lights off, she could glide to the fridge, or find her way to her reading chair, or confidently locate the front-door handle to make sure it was locked. This home felt like an extension of self, a sanctuary.

  Now, though, it seemed whatever turmoil waited on the city streets for a lone woman on foot was less dangerous than what hovered inside.

  And if she was feeling trapped here in her sanctuary, how did Todd feel, confined in someplace she struggled t
o imagine? She"d pictured a small compound, set apart from its neighbors and surrounded by high walls. Within, a building, the color of terracotta. She envisioned a thick but dusty rug on the floor along with a thinly padded mat for sleeping. One window, surely: the bit of blue sky a redemption. Any books? Probably not. A radio would also be too much to hope for. And the food? She wondered if he"d lost weight. He"d told her he had an iron stomach, which must be acting in his favor now, helping him stay physically strong. Emotionally, she imagined him solid too, calm and confident. She didn"t have it in her to imagine anything else.